International audienceThis study focuses on drivers of franchise network internationalization, namely, intangible resources and plural form. Intangible resources refer to those that the franchisor acquires over time and are deemed instrumental to firm success, namely, brand name, monitoring, and know-how transfer abilities. Plural form refers to the coexistence of franchised outlets and company-owned outlets within the same network. The empirical study involves 853 U.S. and French networks. Findings indicate that the percentage of Company-owned outlets in international networks is lower than that in purely domestic networks, and this holds for both the combined data sample (United States and France) and the U.S. sample on its own. Moreover, U.S. franchisors are shown to be much more internationalized, with a smaller percentage of company-owned outlets than their French counterparts. The intangible resource that most strongly affects franchise internationalization is brand-name recognition, whereas there is partial support for the impact of two other intangible resources, namely, monitoring and know-how transfer ability. The results of the logistic regression models underscore the importance of intangible resources in franchise network internationalization as well as the significant and negative impact of percentage of company-owned outlets. Finally, the drivers of internationalization are not found to be statistically different between both countries
on and Begoña L opez-Fern andez Franchisors must empower franchisees to take decisions on a package of peripheral elements in response to pressure for local adaptations and for entrepreneurial autonomy. However, little is known about which specific elements should be decentralized and to what extent adaptation of such elements affects disputes between franchisor and franchisees. This study explores these issues by analyzing which decision rights should be franchisees' responsibility to reduce early terminations instigated by the franchisor. The results show that delegating decision rights on local advertising and personnel reduces early terminations while delegation of pricing tends to increase them, regardless of the size of the system. Interestingly, successful delegation in other decisionareas is contingent on the brand-name value. More specifically, only larger chains seem to benefit from delegating assortment and decoration decisions.
Franchisors capitalize on franchisee entrepreneurial capacity to grow. However, enabling franchisees to develop their ventures may damage system consistency. This dilemma makes conflict particularly prevalent in the field of franchising. Nevertheless, prior research has reported an incomplete picture of factors leading to serious disagreement and premature termination in franchise partnerships. We address this gap, first, by adding the entrepreneurial autonomy of franchisees as a relevant but underexplored source of conflict and, second, by providing a more fine-grained analysis of franchisors' versus franchisees' drivers of termination. Specifically, we focus on the controversial issues of pricing and local advertising policies and analyze how expanding franchisees' entrepreneurial autonomy in these decision areas is related to contract terminations depending on who ended the relationship (the franchisor or a franchisee). The study also highlights less controversial requirements and conditions (e.g., upfront investments, franchisor experience …) that may reduce early terminations. Our empirical objectives are met by using survey data from a sample of franchisor companies. The results show how the performance outcomes of entrepreneurial autonomy differ depending on the decision area in which it is exercised. Results also throw light on the consequences of various critical franchise policies that may be masked if both types of termination (franchisors vs. franchisees) are considered together.
Through a survey-based study of 761 franchisees from four countries, the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Spain – this research examines how a franchisee’s entrepreneurial personality traits affects the financial and relational performance of franchise units. While there is consensus that franchisee characteristics are important for successful franchise networks, there is a long-standing debate within the franchise literature as to the status, and indeed desirability, of franchisees as entrepreneurs. First, we consider how the personality traits of proactivity, innovativeness and locus of control influence the manifestation of entrepreneurial behaviours within the franchise unit, and both the direct and indirect relationships with unit performance. Second, we explore these relationships in two contexts, one associated with high entrepreneurial values (the United States and the United Kingdom) and another with low entrepreneurial values (France and Spain) to determine if the results are consistent across cultures which value entrepreneurship differently. The results suggest that franchisee performance, in terms of both financial performance and relationship quality, are indirectly enhanced by a proactive disposition, mediated by entrepreneurial behaviours. A direct positive relationship was found between locus of control and performance outcomes, but interestingly, franchisees with more innovative personalities performed less well financially. The relationships between franchisee personality, entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and performance were found to be largely consistent across the two cultural groups.
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